"[A] man . . .the other day pointed out that I was never bored. I hadn’t thought of that before, but it’s true: I’m never bored. I’m appalled, horrified, angered, but never bored. The world appears to me so infinite in its variety that many lifetimes could not exhaust its interest. So long as you can still be surprised, you have something to be thankful for."
-Theodore Dalrymple

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

8 JANUARY – ST. PETER THOMAS, O. CARM.

The second great bishop of Carmel was St. Peter Thomas, born in 1305, at Perigord. Unlike St. Andrew Corsini, he was of humble parentage and very poor, but with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He made every sacrifice, even depriving himself of necessaries, to obtain his education, and soon was able to instruct himself and teach others, so that the Carmelite Fathers engaged him for their classes, and the young students were the first to avail of his extraordinary genius. Soon he begged for admission, and the Professor became a monk at twenty.

He was sent to the University of Paris and was there at the same time as Andrew Corsini, though history does not record the meeting of the young French and Italian Carmelites. The nations were apt to hold together amid the multitudes there. Peter Thomas was among the first teachers of Bologna. His sanctity was soon recognized as being equal to his learning, and he was given the highest Offices in the Order. His life may be summarized in three words: Mary, Union of the Greeks, and Jerusalem.

“Mary,” for his devotion to Our Lady, his treatises on her Immaculate Conception, his visions, his inexpressible love for her; “Union of the Greeks,” for it was his special mission and for that he was sent to Constantinople by the Sovereign Pontiff; and “Jerusalem,” for the Holy City was his Patriarchal See.

Clement VI had for him a marked affection, and called him to Avignon to be Doctor of Theology for the Papal Court. It was while there, on the eve of Pentecost, 1351, that he had a vision of Our Lady which hung as a bow of promise over the awful years so soon to follow. Even then the sinister shadow was cast upon the Mountain, and the great heart of Peter Thomas was rent with anguish. Prostrate, he prayed and pleaded with Mary his Queen and his Mother, to protect her Order, and she appeared to him in glory saying: “Peter, fear not, the Order of Carmel will endure unto the end of the world; Elias has obtained this from my Son.” We read that promise with joy and devotion, but the, in view of what followed, it was a vision of hope almost necessary to uphold the “Brothers of Our Lady” from despair, as pestilence, heresy, and, worst of all, schism, were to walk abroad and threaten the existence of Carmel on every side. . . . . .

. . . . .He was appointed Bishop of Patti and Archbishop of Candia. Charged by Innocent VI with no less than fourteen important embassies, he was sent to the Court of Louis, King of Pouille, to the Emperor Charles IV, and to John VI, Emperor of Constantinople. This City he reconciled to the See of Rome. In 1356, he was sent as Legate to the East and Examiner on questions of faith. In 1360 he anointed Peter I of Lusignan, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and the following year the pestilence attacked the Isle of Cyprus. The population were in consternation at the horrors they witnessed; death everywhere and in a horrible form. Peter multiplied himself, and his devotion during the pest has become a tradition in the Order. He was everywhere and everything; consoler, physician, father to the sick, to the dying, and to those who wept and could not die, for death was easier than life amid such scenes. His history would require a large volume, and through all his embassies, missions and legations, we see the humble servant of Our Lady, the Saint, moving obdurate hearts, inspiring heroic deeds, advancing the interests of the Holy See, and shrinking from the honors that were thrust upon him.

In the midst of the splendor of the times and with his rank as Bishop and Legate, he lived simply like his Brethren; went on foot when possible, lived in his own Monasteries whenever he could, though his presence was claimed as an honor by Kings and Princes.

In 1365, he was made Legate and sent to preach the Crusade against the Turks. He blessed the fleets of the Crusaders amid repeated cries of “Live, Peter of Jerusalem!” “Live, the King of Cyprus against the Saracens!” Thanks to his prudence and prayers, the army of the infidels was routed, and the city of Alexandria taken October 4, 1365. As was his wont, after the battle he went at once to the Carmelite Monastery of Famagusta, to remain for the celebration of Christmas. He had been wounded during the siege, by a Turkish arrow, and this was the cause of his lingering death.

He looked forward with joy to the feast so dear to him, and, just as she did later to St. Andrew Corsini, so did Our Lady appear to Peter Thomas to prepare him and warn him of his coming end, on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. As the hour approached, he commanded his brothers to lay him on the ground with a sack and a cord about his neck, that he might beg pardon of all the Religious gathered about him. He then tried to say the Canonical Hours which he had never missed since his entrance into Religion, but his strength failed. His Confessor finished them with him, and a little after, he died, on January 6, 1366, as Our Lady had predicted. He was buried where he died, in the Church of the Carmelites at Famagusta. He is especially invoked against pestilence and epidemics. In the allocution pronounced by Benedict XIV in 1744, at the Chapter General of the Carmelites, the illustrious Pontiff affirmed that his native city of Bologna was under great obligation to Blessed Peter Thomas, the ornament of Carmel, - “Carmelitanum alumnum et ornamentum,” – because it was owing to his care that peace was established between Pope Urban V, and the Viscount Barnabas, and also because he was the first to have theology taught in the Academy of Bologna, already so famous for its learning. -from Carmel, Its History, Spirit, and Saints, compiled from approved sources by The Discalced Carmelites of Boston and Santa Clara.(1927)

And my godson is named after St. Peter Thomas. Ad multos annos, Peter.

O Holy Ghost the Lord, Who on Pentecost gavest the Church the gift of tongues that Christ might be known,
loved, and served by peoples of divers nations and customs: watch over the Anglican heritage within Thy
Church, we pray Thee, that, led by Thy guidance and strengthened by Thy grace, that Use may find such favour
in Thy sight that its people may increase both in holiness and number, and so show forth Thy glory; Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Son, one God world without end. Amen.

LITURGICAL REGENERATION
One might infer from this selection of links that I believe
"Liturgical Regeneration" is going to come principally, if not
exclusively, from a restoration of the traditional Roman Rite.
Such an inference would be largely correct. However, see also
the Anglican Ordinariate links above.

E-Mail:
High praise, recipes, & sources for
good reeds may be addressed to:

thesixbells AT verizon DOT net

(after, of course, you close up the
spaces, change the "AT" to an "@" and
the "DOT" to a "." Spambots delendi sunt.)
(If this looks new to you, you are quite right; the
old Tavernkeeper address is no more.)

An address for complaints may possibly
be added at some point. In the fullness of time.
Le cunamh Dé. Deo volente.

Should you, in fact, decide to drop me a note,
it is entirely possible that I may decide to publish
it unless you tell me not to. And even if you tell
me not to, things do get in something of a muddle here;
in a fit of absentmindedness, I might publish it anyway.
So discretion is always advisable.

"Two of the pubs near Oxford which C.S. Lewis frequented were The Trout and The Six Bells.
Some of Lewis's American readers had written him to inquire about his views on drinking
alcoholic beverages. His response to them was in no uncertain terms: 'I have always
in my books been concerned simply to put forward mere Christianity, and am no
guide on these (most regrettable) interdenominational questions. I do however
most strongly object to the tyrannic and unscriptural insolence of anything that calls
itself a Church and makes teetotalism a condition of membership. Apart from the more
serious objection (that Our Lord Himself turned water into wine and made wine the medium
of the only rite He imposed on all His followers), it is so provincial (what I believe
you people call small town). Don't they realize that Christianity arose in the
Mediterranean world where, then as now, wine was as much a part of the normal diet as bread?" C. S. Lewis: Images of His World by Douglas Gilbert & Clyde S. Kilby